Dear Common Dreams Readers: Common Dreams is a small non-profit that exists only because of the support of our readers. No advertising; no paywalls: our content is free. But our costs are real. A free and independent press is essential to the health of a functioning democracy. Independent journalism and democracy itself have never been more fragile, more at risk than now. Without your support, we will not exist. Will you join again with those readers who have come forward to make sure Common Dreams has a future?Every donation makes a difference.

GOP Voter Suppression: More Miss than Hit

GOP Voter Suppression: More Miss than Hit

by

Zachary Roth

Yesterday we posted
a quick round-up of the various voter-suppression schemes being pushed
by Republicans in swing states around the country. And after looking at
the list, one thing quickly becomes clear: most of the efforts have
failed.

There's no one grand unifying theory for why that's true.

In some cases, the courts have rejected GOP efforts to make voting harder:

In Indiana, for instance, a Superior Court judge declined to support a GOP bid to shut down early voting centers in Democratic-leaning cities in Lake County, and the state Supreme Court chose not to immediately intervene.

In Wisconsin, a suit brought by Republican Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen -- which he later admitted
had been requested by the Republican Party -- seeking to force the
state election board to re-confirm all newly registered voters was thrown out by a county court.

In Michigan, a federal appeals court today blocked
the Republican secretary of state, Terri Lynn Land, from throwing 5,500
newly registered voters off the rolls because their registration cards
were returned as undeliverable, after voting-rights groups sued.

In other states, Democratic state officials or voting-rights advocates have held the line:

In Nevada, Secretary of State Ross Miller denied a request
from the state GOP to require voters to cast provisional ballots if
they fixed mistakes in their voting information at the polls.

In Colorado, a bid by Republican Secretary
of State Mike Coffman -- who himself is running for a seat in the U.S.
House -- to purge 14,000 voters from the rolls was only partially
successful. After voting-rights groups sued, a settlement was reached yesterday allowing the voters to cast provisional ballots. According to the Rocky Mountain News,
those ballots would "be presumed to be valid unless state and county
officials prove otherwise." A lawyer for the voting-rights groups
called the deal "a win-win."

In still other places, it's been a combination of both factors:

In Ohio -- perhaps the most
high-profile example of voter-suppression this cycle -- the state GOP
sued to force Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner to provide local
election officials with the names of new voters whose registration
information didn't match other government documents. Brunner resisted,
arguing, it appears correctly, that the information would be used to
challenge large numbers of voters and cause chaos at the polls. The
U.S. Supreme Court ultimately sided with Brunner. (The Department of Justice deserves some of the credit here, too, for declining a request by the White House to intervene.)

And in some states, the Republicans appear to have done themselves
in through the sheer chutzpah of their behavior, and the resulting
outcry:

In Montana, the state GOP announced
plans to challenge 6000 voters in predominantly Democratic counties,
based on discrepancies between in their listed addresses. But after
even Republicans in the state denounced the ploy, the party backed off, and its executive director resigned.

In New Mexico, the state party held a press conference
at which it released the names, and some personal information, of ten
voters, almost all Hispanic, that it said had voted fraudulently in a
Democratic primary in June. It was later established that they were all legitimate voters. The U.S. Department of Justice is now investigating reports by TPMmuckraker and others
that a lawyer attached to the party sent a private investigator to the
homes of some of these voters to question them about their voting
status -- potentially violating federal voting laws.

Of course, that's not to suggest that Republican suppression efforts haven't been successful anywhere. In Florida, for instance, Secretary of State Kurt Browning, a Republican, has instructed election officials to reject voter registration applications that do not pass a computer match test. Voting-rights groups say
the system can disqualify voters based on nothing more than a missing
middle initial on their voter form. They fear the move could
disenfranchise tens of thousands of legitimate voters. (Though even in
the Sunshine State, there's a bright spot. GOP governor Charlie Crist
on Tuesday ordered extended hours for early voting centers, after long lines were reported in many parts of the state.)

Of course, the whole point of the voter-suppression game is to throw
up as many gambits as possible, and hope that just a few succeed. And
there's no way to measure the effect that even the unsuccessful ploys
have in generating cynicism about the process itself, and thereby
reducing turnout, to Republicans' advantage. So in a close election,
it's still possible that voter suppression could make the difference --
as it may well have done in 2000.

But it's worth noting that -- thanks largely to Democratic control
of the secretary of state's offices in some key states; the skepticism
with which many courts have looked on efforts to put obstacles in the
way of voting; and the role of voting-rights groups and the press in
exposing the bankruptcy of Republican claims -- the nationwide GOP
voter-suppression effort appears to have been far less successful than
the party might have hoped.

Further

In the vile wake of Charlottesville - those sweaty young white men, pasty faces contorted, screaming, "Blood and Soil!" "Jews Will Not Replace Us!" "Fuck You Faggots!" - what to say? Just this: This is racism, domestic terrorism, pure hate. This is not who we are, and this is not ok. Most vital, those "whose pigmentation matches theirs" must speak "with unflinching clarity (or) we simply amen it... They need white faces speaking directly into their white faces, loudly on behalf of love."

Common Dreams brings you the news that matters.

Sign up for Newsletter

Connect With Us

X

Your Support Makes A Difference: Over 90% of the Common Dreams budget comes from reader support. We rely on you. Will you join again with those readers who have come forward to make sure Common Dreams has a future? We can't do it without you.